[HN Gopher] OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware
___________________________________________________________________
OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware
Author : zdw
Score : 299 points
Date : 2021-02-20 23:58 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marc.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (marc.info)
| dooglius wrote:
| Is there something about multi-user that makes it harder than
| single-user? If it boots, it's all software at that point, no?
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| full stretch of a dmesg really
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| lots more context switching which is a big thing on a new
| architecture.
|
| It goes from "it boots as a toy" to "actually useful"
| tedunangst wrote:
| Implies a level of stability greater than getting to the "press
| enter for sh" prompt. Virtual memory is working, filesytems are
| working, etc.
| spijdar wrote:
| Also probably tests things like signals/job control. I ran
| into an issue bootstrapping ppcle (on linux) where everything
| but the signal handler (and vDSO) were working, but context
| switching from a kernel to a signal handler ended in SIGILL.
| Booting multi-user probably wouldn't work without working
| signals.
| monadic5 wrote:
| In the sense that single user mode is used as a failure mode
| for the boot process, it indicates that the system was
| successfully able to bootstrap from the EFI to its own
| (critical) drivers successfully.
| bch wrote:
| This is what I love about OpenBSD (as an observer, and being
| adjacent via NetBSD) - in surprising ways, when they want
| something, they leap on it. Forefront of wireless chips,
| accelerated gfx (perplexing to me, but happily so), and now this?
| Keep it up, OpenBSD. This is impressive.
| rgovostes wrote:
| Running an alternative OS "natively" on a Mac doesn't seem very
| appealing to me. It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get
| Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working
| flawlessly, especially on the M1 where almost every component is
| Apple proprietary and it's not a matter of loading, say, some
| common Intel graphics driver.
|
| On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run whatever
| arm64 BSD, Linux, or Windows that you want. The trackpad and
| everything else will work flawlessly thanks to guest additions.
| Yes, you make some tradeoffs -- you sacrifice a core, a few GB of
| RAM, some disk space for an OS you don't _really_ want to be
| running. But I'm skeptical that these are not better tradeoffs
| than constantly using a hacked-together and half-broken OS.
|
| To me the ideal solution is not that Corellium or Marcan or
| whoever reverse engineers the drivers to a sufficient degree. I'd
| rather see Apple (or the Hackintosh types) release a tiny variant
| of macOS that contains hardware drivers and Hypervisor.framework
| and not much else. It could be the next generation of Boot Camp
| and it would probably take less engineering effort for them to
| maintain while satisfying the small segment of customers
| interested in running other operating systems.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Nah, I want to choose the kernel.
|
| This statement is a bit presumptuous: "It's almost guaranteed
| you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration,
| the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly."
|
| Maybe I do not want all those things every time I boot. Apple
| used an "alternative OS" for their Airport routers: NetBSD.
| Kernel was around 6.x if I recall correctly. Seemed like Wi-Fi
| worked preety good, maybe even "flawlessly".
|
| It's a computer. As the purchaser, I should get to decide how
| it is used. Using Apple software should be optional.
| pjmlp wrote:
| You can also decide to give the money to other computer
| vendors that actually care about BSD.
|
| I don't know, like Tuxedo,
|
| https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Infos/News/OpenBSD-6-3-cu.
| ..
| [deleted]
| soheil wrote:
| I'm just really curious and don't have a dog in this fight
| against/for ability to do as you will with a product you
| purchase.
|
| A) a hypothetical device, let's not call it a computer, but
| similar, exists that asks you politely by means of something
| like a license not to modify it even though it would be
| possible to do so pretty easily.
|
| B) another device, this time a hypothetical CPU that is next
| to impossible to modify with any degree of ease since it
| requires nanoscale tools.
|
| Why should there be a fundamental difference in a person's
| ability to modify one of the above, but not the other? Just
| because the laws of Physics don't allow mere mortals to so
| (not at least without a highly sophisticated nano fabrication
| lab) doesn't seem like a very convincing principled answer.
| Is there a stronger argument?
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Why should there be a fundamental difference in a person
| 's ability to modify one of the above, but not the other?_
|
| Because one could trivially modify the first, and people do
| all the time (and screw the law), whereas the second is, as
| you said, "next to impossible" to modify even if you want
| it.
|
| > _Just because the laws of Physics don 't allow mere
| mortals to so (not at least without a highly sophisticated
| nano fabrication lab) doesn't seem like a very convincing
| principled answer_
|
| In what universe do "the laws of physics prevent this to be
| done easily without millions of dollars" is not a
| convincing answer?
| lmm wrote:
| Intent is important in law and in most people's moral
| principles (acknowledged or not). It seems to me that going
| out of your way to make the things you sell easier to
| repair is supererogatory, but going out of your way to make
| the things you sell harder to repair is bad and wrong, even
| if two companies did those two different things and reached
| the same end result.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| I'd like to point out that the dmesg indicates a M1 Mac Mini.
| There is no display, no keyboard, no mouse, no trackpad, etc.
| I think there may be a 3.5mm headphone jack, though.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| > Apple used an "alternative OS" for their Airport routers:
| NetBSD. Kernel was around 6.x if I recall correctly. Seemed
| like Wi-Fi worked preety good, maybe even "flawlessly".
|
| That's a nice strawman you got here. AirPort routers shipped
| with NetBSD, and it was officially supported. But good luck
| getting macOS to run on that -- macOS would count as the
| "alternative OS" for the AirPort.
| bivargen wrote:
| Yes, the Airport routers used various NetBSD versions as
| their OS. However the wireless drivers where, at least for
| some versions, proprietary.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >This statement is a bit presumptuous
|
| It's not. Anyone who has followed the last 10 years of Apple
| devices knows what works and what doesn't.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "Presumptuous" meaning it presumes what a user will want to
| do with a computer. In this case, the computer comes with
| no display, no keyboard, no mouse, no trackpad, etc.
| fulafel wrote:
| Do you mean to imply that those things are known not to
| work?
|
| There have been many Apple devices where all those
| mentioned things (if present) work under a non-Apple OS. So
| as usual the truth is somewhere in the middle. From my
| Linux experience there are a lot of well working MBP models
| from this time span. And Minis.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I think there is another way to look at it. If not for Apple's
| hardware policies, you would just be able to run your favorite
| OS on their hardware. It's the fact that they publish EULAs and
| NDAs so long that it probably wouldn't have fit I to the RAM of
| their first computers which actively slow down or prohibit any
| work by developers. Why isn't it Apple whom we should find
| unappealing?
| rualca wrote:
| >>Running an alternative OS "natively" on a Mac doesn't seem
| very appealing to me. It's almost guaranteed you will never
| fully get (...) working flawlessly
|
| This statement is rather miopic. I still recall when this very
| same argument was made regarding the idea of wanting to install
| Linux in computers which were bundled with Windows. I can tell
| you it made absolutely no difference to me a couple of decades
| ago when I installed Mandrake Linux on a Windows laptop, and it
| made no difference to me that I couldn't get hardware
| acceleration or the webcam to work, and that wifi only worked
| with ndiswrapper. I was able to run the software I wanted to
| use in the hardware I bought, and that's what matters.
|
| M1 Mac minis are on the market for around 800$, which is an
| affordable price point, and their form factor and looks make
| them an interesting choice for a home server or workstation. It
| would be incomprehensible if we couldn't take advantage of that
| hardware by running our choice of software.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It 's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi,
| audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working
| flawlessly_
|
| And yet people have done it with Linux just fine... Linus
| himself run a G5 as his desktop (circa 2003-2005) and later a
| Macbook Air as his daily driver laptop (circa 2011-2013...)
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| But this was not on an _M1_.
|
| This was on an _AMD64_ system that was far less Apple-
| specific as far as I know.
| coldtea wrote:
| Yes, but the parent comment said " especially on the M1",
| implying that that was the case on Intel too...
| sedatk wrote:
| > you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration,
| the trackpad, etc
|
| I agree with your sentiment, but that isn't as serious as you
| say on, say, M1 Minis used as servers and that's probably where
| OpenBSD would shine.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I absolutely expect Asahi to get all of those things working in
| due course. Lots of smart people are working on it.
| rgovostes wrote:
| It doesn't feel like it's the best use of their talents,
| though.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I'd say let people decide for themselves how to apply their
| talents.
| MagnumPIG wrote:
| Neither is making a black box a good use of Apple's
| talents, yet here we are.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run
| whatever arm64 BSD, Linux, or Windows that you want. The
| trackpad and everything else will work flawlessly thanks to
| guest additions. Yes, you make some tradeoffs -- you sacrifice
| a core, a few GB of RAM, some disk space for an OS you don't
| _really_ want to be running. But I'm skeptical that these are
| not better tradeoffs than constantly using a hacked-together
| and half-broken OS.
|
| True in theory, but at least with Linux I've found that desktop
| environments exhibit a slight but maddening level of
| sluggishness in VMs, no matter if it's GNOME, KDE, XFCE, or
| MATE. If all you need is a commandline Linux VMs are great but
| I'd go insane trying to use one as a graphical desktop for an
| extended period.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Really, that goes for any guest OS other than maybe Windows,
| and Windows is different only because VM developers have
| poured an enormous amount of time and money into it.
|
| You can get rid of the sluggishness with GPU passthrough...
| but then the guest OS would still need GPU drivers.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| It would be to Apple's advantage somewhat to make that
| happen right? Apple wants to sell hardware and does not
| mind people running virtualised Windows or Linux on it?
| pushrax wrote:
| Apple also tends to prefer pushing their users to their
| closed software ecosystem. Given the likely low demand
| for passthrough on these devices, I kind of doubt they'll
| implement it in the foreseeable future.
| presentation wrote:
| They also sell services though, and their products
| reinforce one another so that once you're bought into
| their ecosystem it ties you to Apple products in
| perpetuity. I know because it happened to me; doesn't
| happen if you're not actually using the OS.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _so that once you're bought into their ecosystem it
| ties you to Apple products in perpetuity._
|
| Only because of the seamlessness (within reason) of the
| experience.
|
| Otherwise, there's nothing to switching to another OS for
| all or any part of it.
|
| Many (most?) apps people use everyday are web- or
| Electron based, so they can switch to any other Windows
| or Linux with e.g. Chrome.
|
| Their music is in some streaming service (Spotify, Apple
| Music, Google Play, etc) all of which play on other OSes
| (and in any case, they can change subscription and they
| haven't lost anything). Or, for the fussier, it's mp3 or
| flac files, they can easily move. Even bought music (aac)
| from the iTunes Store is playable in other platform
| (since Apple has removed the DRM for a decade or so).
|
| Ditto for movies. It's all streaming nowadays, and you
| can just switch to another streaming service (and all
| play everywhere anyway).
|
| As for professional apps, most heavy ones (MS Office,
| Adobe Suite, Cubase, Live, Resolve, etc) run just fine in
| both OSX and Windows, and come with dual installers, so
| you can switch if you like (some even allow for multiple
| computers at the same time).
|
| (If you're using Logic or FCPX, then sure, you'll need to
| find another program, and go through the pain of
| migrating your projects).
|
| For mobile it's the same thing. E.g. you can sync just
| fine with an Android phone (you just don't get niceties
| like Handoff, Scan-to-Notes, etc).
|
| So there's nothing special to "tie you to Apple products
| in perpetuity" except "I might lose the use of some apps
| that are Mac Only" (so same thing that would have tied
| you to Windows or Linux in perpetuity).
| pushrax wrote:
| I'm don't think you can do GPU or PCI passthrough on macOS.
| Not sure if/when Apple would consider adding that.
|
| I'm glad the things I want to do on Linux are all terminal
| based. I used a tiling WM for years on Arch and don't miss
| it much with all the macOS WM extensions available now
| (Magnet, Rectangle, Moom, Hammerspoon, etc). Less themeable
| but perfectly functional.
| dwaite wrote:
| > I'm don't think you can do GPU or PCI passthrough on
| macOS. Not sure if/when Apple would consider adding that.
|
| With Big Sur, Apple now has paravirtualization support.
| It exposes Metal API to manipulate virtual display
| devices. See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/pa
| ravirtualizedgra...
|
| I doubt Apple has any intention of publishing hardware
| documentation for someone to write a native driver, but
| there are behavioral reverse engineering efforts already
| underway.
| bubblethink wrote:
| There are a couple of projects that improve this (for linux
| host + linux guest). virgl exposes accelerated graphics to
| the guest, which chromeOS uses in its offering. Intel also
| has its GVT-g offering which virtualises intel integrated
| GPUs. Of course, none of this applies to apple.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Running an alternative OS "natively" on a Mac doesn't seem
| very appealing to me. It's almost guaranteed you will never
| fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad,
| etc. working flawlessly, especially on the M1 where almost
| every component is Apple proprietary and it's not a matter of
| loading, say, the right Intel graphics driver.
|
| It's not appealing to me _now_. In 9 or 10 years when Apple has
| stopped shipping new versions of MacOS for the platform, it
| will be much more interesting for me. Of course by then it 's
| just a curiosity or fun project, not something I need for day
| to day. And by then, much of the wifi/ graphics/ audio issues
| will be solved.
| amatecha wrote:
| literally just installed OpenBSD on my iMac G4 last week, haha
| (oh yeah, everything works flawlessly btw, including graphics
| acceleration)
| rgovostes wrote:
| The iMac G4 didn't support virtualization, so booting an
| alternative OS is more attractive. And the Nvidia GPU is
| probably easier to find cross-platform drivers for. New
| drivers or some sort of IOKit compatibility layer need to be
| developed for the M1 GPU (which is orders of magnitude more
| complex).
|
| (I can run OpenBSD on any modern piece of hardware, though;
| the novelty and nostalgia are in running Mac OS 9 on that.)
| fulafel wrote:
| It's a PowerPC architecture CPU so from hardware POV it
| supports virtualization out of the box[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popek_and_Goldberg_virtua
| lizat....
| anthk wrote:
| It did. Check Mac On Linux.
|
| The iMac G4 didn't support virtualization,
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I think most people would prefer not having an extra OS
| underneath when possible.
|
| Also, the G4 iMac is a special piece of hardware in my
| book. I'd love to Frankenstein an M1 G4 iMac.
| austinshea wrote:
| But, presumably, you can understand why it is very appealing to
| others.
|
| These devices are mass produced, and have long lifespans.
|
| It's a good target for development.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| Being able to run OpenBSD or FreeBSD on a M1 mini would be
| AWESOME. That little machine is pretty powerful and does not
| need much power to do what it does.
|
| If you are talking purely about desktop, I have to agree with
| you that the only real option is MacOS because of all the
| apple-only stuff (at least for now until drivers show up)
|
| But there's more uses of hardware then desktops.
| beermonster wrote:
| I run Linux natively on a MacBook just fine. In fact I had to,
| when High Sierra went out of support not that long after I'd
| upgraded my RAM and HDD to SDD. It now flies and honestly I
| don't know why I waited until High Sierra went end of life as I
| feel Mac OS X has got worse and worse. Also the hardware has
| got less and less upgradable/fixable in that time too.
| atoponce wrote:
| > On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run
| whatever arm64 BSD, Linux, or Windows that you want. The
| trackpad and everything else will work flawlessly thanks to
| guest additions.
|
| The OpenBSD kernel doesn't support loadable kernel modules, so
| virtual machine guest additions are not an option for a
| virtualized OpenBSD.
| giomasce wrote:
| Most laptops are more or less in the same situation as M1.
| Maybe they different quantitatively, but not qualitatively:
| devices do not have (sufficient) specs available and people
| need to reverse engineer them if you want to run any free OS on
| them. Yet people want to do that and often manage. Why is M1
| different?
|
| What I really would like to see is hardware manufacturers
| (Apple and anybody else) releasing the specs, so that people
| are free to do whatever they want with the metal they buy. I
| might event consider appropriate a legislative intervention in
| this field.
| xorcist wrote:
| Not all laptops. Regular stock Intel components, for example,
| have solid Linux support because Intel nowadays hire kernel
| developers to support them. Some even have upstream drivers
| before the hardware is even commercially available.
| waheoo wrote:
| Yup found this remark super weird.
|
| Mac users seem to live under a rock or something.
|
| Got some weird idea that anything not a Mac must be windows
| like it's the 90s or something.
|
| Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't
| ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this
| space.
| udp wrote:
| Anecdotal counterpoint: I bought a cheap Intel SoC laptop
| in 2019 thinking it would make a nice ultraportable
| writing machine. Things that it shipped without Linux
| support for: the trackpad, wifi, Bluetooth, and disk
| (eMMC controller). It _just about_ works now with the
| latest kernel version and some manually compiled drivers,
| nearly two years later.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn
| 't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I
| this space._
|
| So just the most important graphics vendor huh?
| giomasce wrote:
| And that's great, but there is more in a laptop than Intel
| components. And you're not always lucky on that side.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Looks like he is booting from USB stick.
| sigjuice wrote:
| Need to start somewhere.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| That's the preferred method for me on NetBSD.
| spijdar wrote:
| Relevant I guess since, besides the GPU, I'd expect one of
| the hardest parts of porting to the M1 would be full support
| for its very non-standard storage interfaces.
|
| Still impressive, but installing on or booting off the
| internal storage will be a big milestone for an prospective
| OS.
| wmf wrote:
| Isn't the internal storage NVMe?
| mjg59 wrote:
| Yes, but not attached via PCIe.
| asguy wrote:
| For anyone else interested: https://github.com/corellium/
| linux-m1/blob/master/drivers/pc...
| Maursault wrote:
| Responding to children, not the parent... and yet I have
| replied to the parent.
|
| This is interesting because (last I heard) Apple doesn't let M1
| Macs boot macOS off an external drive.
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| Some of us really like Mac hardware, but don't like macOS
|
| A fully working setup of Linux on a Mac is the dream for me
| pjmlp wrote:
| What about sponsoring BSD OEMs to achieve the same level of
| hardware quality?
|
| https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/index.php
| alsetmusic wrote:
| So much for the many remarks made on HN claiming that Apple would
| use the M1 to further exert control over users' ability to boot
| an alternative OS. Between this and Asahi Linux, I'd say things
| are off to a good start.
|
| Btw, Asahi has a Patreon page for anyone who wants to contribute.
| I'm tossing twelve bucks a month and recommend any Mac users with
| interest in booting alternative OSes support such projects.
|
| Now I'm gonna see if there's an option to throw money at this.
| TheRealSteel wrote:
| That wasn't an assumption or knee-jerk reaction. Apple went on
| record as saying other operating systems wouldn't boot on Apple
| Silicon. Admittedly there's enough vagueness that they didn't
| 100% rule it out completely, but I think it was a fair
| interpretation of what they said at the time.
|
| Craig Federighi said this when talking to John Gruber:
|
| "We're not direct booting an alternate operating system,
| it's... purely virtualization is the route. But these
| hypervisors can be very efficient, so the need to direct boot
| shouldn't be the concern."
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hfkdlg/craig_federig...
| ogre_codes wrote:
| You are quoting a reddit comment which mis-interpreted what
| Federighi said. They didn't say they would prevent
| alternative operating systems from booting, only that _they
| aren 't doing it_. As opposed to the fact that they are in
| fact helping get Linux running in the hypervisor and actually
| demoed Linux running in a VM before it was public.
|
| Apple documented how people could boot alternative operating
| systems.
| TheRealSteel wrote:
| I reiterate that I believe it was a reasonable
| interpretation of what Apple said.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| While I can understand interpreting what he said as you
| did, _I did at the time_. There are facts on the ground
| which illustrate quite clearly that they do in fact allow
| alternative OSs.
|
| I suspect Federighi chose his words carefully and
| deliberately. The alternative is they changed their
| approach. Regardless, documentation and code don't lie,
| nor do they contradict him in any way.
| rudedogg wrote:
| They're quoting Craig Federighi:
| https://youtu.be/Hg9F1Qjv3iU?t=3794
|
| I don't get the downvotes of the parent post, the
| interpretation is completely reasonable. The point is that
| Apple was very clear that they are only supporting macOS on
| their hardware.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I know who they are quoting. I also re-listened to what
| he said because at the time I'd made the same assumption.
|
| Apple execs are infamously careful about how they word
| things. Federighi could have said they won't allow other
| operating systems, but he didn't because that's not what
| they did or were planning.
|
| If they didn't intend for this to be possible, they
| wouldn't have shipped it this way _and documented_ how to
| do it.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not just documented, documented _well_. bputil's man page
| is probably the best new one I've seen in years.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > The point is that Apple was very clear that they are
| only supporting macOS on their hardware.
|
| And that is exactly what they mean. They're not going to
| help you with your port or field your questions when you
| ask for how things work. They are just going to leave the
| door open for you.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| I took what Craig said more as "we aren't doing Bootcamp,
| run Windows in a VM". Apple never really supported the
| efforts to run Linux/BSD on their hardware in Intel, why
| would they start with the M1?
| saagarjha wrote:
| They support it about well as they did in Intel, which is
| to say that they left the door open to it. At the volume
| that Macs ship at, and the interest they garner, this is
| mostly enough to get people willing to put in the effort
| to make it work.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| Yeah, I agree they "left the door open", but the point I
| was making is that Apple provides zero resources (docs,
| data sheets, people to help, etc) that I've seen to those
| who are trying to reverse engineer the components in
| their machines to get them to work with an open source
| OS. Like an internal engineer tasked with working on an A
| series processor gets a tens of thousands of page PDF on
| the processor alone, not including similar PDFs for the
| GPU, but good luck ever getting that from Apple to port
| say Linux to it.
| mhh__ wrote:
| > Now I'm gonna see if there's an option to throw money at
| this.
|
| Even if I were God I wouldn't stop anyone doing it, but does it
| not leave a bad taste in your mouth that Apple charge the best
| part of 2 thousand dollars for a laptop with a basically brand-
| new (so not rotted) stack but utterly refuse to document
| anything beyond the absolute basics - this is the world's
| largest tech company, from which I conclude that they have no
| interest in allowing users to control their own hardware since
| it's literally chump change for them to (say) publish some
| extremely basic info about the peripherals like even nvidia do
| now.
| lloeki wrote:
| > utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute
| basics
|
| I don't see how that's any different from PC or ARM world,
| save for a couple of larger scale exceptions (Dell, Lenovo,
| Intel, AMD) and a bunch of insignificant players (Raspberry,
| System76 & al), and even then it's a fairly recent
| development in PC history that these players
| document/support/contribute anything.
|
| The fact that Linux pretty much works+ on any PC out there is
| mostly due to volunteers hacking stuff around on PCs that are
| getting increasingly normalised.
|
| And even with the normalisation of hardware architecture,
| there are still a lot of either unspecified of spec violating
| special cases. If one is not convinced by that, I encourage
| one to lurk the Linux kernel tree for quirks, device trees,
| and other various DSDT hacks. The weird size of payloads for
| the T2 SSD controller that stumped everyone for some time is
| only one among many, many other quirks that exist overall.
|
| After 10+ years, dust is only settling on the BIOS to EFI
| transition, and I'm not the least surprised that it takes a
| bit of time to adapt to the overall ARM Mac architecture.
|
| + by "works" I mean boots reasonably well to init 5+VESA, and
| most of the time something else than VESA. But taking random
| hardware and having a bulletproof system out of the box down
| to every nook and cranny is still a tall order. There are
| systems that fully work optimally out of the box, but they're
| a very small minority.
| mjg59 wrote:
| Intel refuse to document significant portions of their
| technology, and Linux works less well on their platforms as a
| result. They definitely do a better job of documenting things
| than Apple, but I'd really frame this as a difference in
| degree rather than in kind.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Can you give some examples - I thought Intel was pretty
| involved with the Linux foundation and have released a lot
| of open source code?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Intel encrypts their microcode, for example.
| mhh__ wrote:
| DIY microcode is a really bad idea if that's what you
| mean
| mjg59 wrote:
| They release plenty of open code, but then you also end
| up with situations like them not documenting DPTF and so
| laptops running slower under Linux than under Windows
| (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/54923.html has more on
| this), failing to document the requirements for entering
| deep power saving states and so laptops consuming more
| power under Linux than under Windows
| (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html), not doing any
| upstream work on the IPU4 camera platform so the webcam
| doesn't work on various laptops - instead this ends up
| with random people outside Intel having to reverse
| engineer stuff or do integration work on Intel's behalf.
| Is it better than Apple? Yeah. Is it good? No.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Intel still publish manuals hundreds and hundreds of pages
| longer than anyone else at their volume of sales.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Apple needs open source hackers to port all open source
| software to M1 chips for free before locking them more down.
|
| To be honest I just ordered my first MacBook Pro as well, so
| I guess I'm part of the ,,problem''
| saagarjha wrote:
| That makes very little sense. What does Apple get out of
| letting people run Linux and OpenBSD, then preventing it?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| ...to play devil's advocate a bit (because I really do
| agree with you), I could have asked the same question
| about Linux on the PS3, and we all know how that ended.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I run a "Hacker News advocate" against the comments I
| post, and this was one of the things I thought of. You
| will note that in that case Sony actually suffered quite
| a bit in their response, and they only really did it out
| of fears of piracy. In this case the I believe backlash
| will be fairly large, not the least from their own
| platform security people for having years of their work
| invalidated. Also, in this case the only thing I can see
| that could drive them to do this would be if FairPlay
| keys were somehow made available in the fully unsigned OS
| environment: I haven't really looked into this (don't
| have my M1 Mac yet) but I would be very surprised if so.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| To have every open source app ported to their processor,
| and get the usage up. I'm a developer and I love the
| specs of the hardware, and I need open source tools to
| work on it.
|
| On the long term though they can get more App store /
| cloud revenue by making sure that Apple's apps are always
| ahead in hardware compatibility.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Porting apps does not require them to open up their boot
| sequence.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >like even nvidia do now.
|
| Nvidia does so kicking and screaming, because 1) they have no
| choice but to abide by the GPL for things that use kernel
| internals, and 2) Since they make money from linux, at least
| in the HPC/ML space, they want users to at least be able to
| see the screen light up so that they can install the
| proprietary stack.
|
| The lawnmover analogy is apt for most companies.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > but does it not leave a bad taste in your mouth that Apple
| charge the best part of 2 thousand dollars for a laptop with
| a basically brand-new (so not rotted) stack but utterly
| refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics
|
| Computers are tools to get a job done. I buy a computer so I
| can write software on it. While I am happy that we can get
| Linux and OpenBSD on a Mac, it's not a deal breaker.
| Regardless of whether OpenBSD or Linux boots on it, I can get
| my job done quickly and effectively.
|
| If they did something that got in the way of building the
| software I need to build? Then I'd punch out in a heartbeat.
|
| Not everyone is interesting in fiddling with the internals of
| the tools they buy. Even if that tool is a computer.
| endgame wrote:
| > I buy a computer so I can write software on it.
|
| And I use Free Software operating systems to ensure that I
| can continue to do so.
| [deleted]
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I fully support this effort and the Linux port for the
| eventual time when Apple does eventually stop supporting
| this hardware. But at that point in time, I won't be
| relying on it for work anymore, it will be a hobby/
| project, much like my G4 iMac.
|
| In the mean time, it's very fun seeing how quickly people
| are making progress on this.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| >> I buy a computer so I can write software on it.
|
| > And I use Free Software operating systems to ensure
| that I can continue to do so.
|
| The point of this discussion is your ability to run a
| free OS on an M1 Mac.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Or rather the lack of ability to run a free os on M1.
| mhh__ wrote:
| > If they did something that got in the way of building the
| software I need to build? Then I'd punch out in a
| heartbeat.
|
| Sadly I don't do it for a living, but the stuff I like to
| write is all tuned for performance, they don't tell me
| anything about the CPU, so even if I was in the market for
| one I still wouldn't buy one as I couldn't have any fun
| using it.
|
| And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the
| phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this
| regard, but it remains true that many people are in terms
| of knowledge and purchasing power completely at the whim of
| (in this case) Apple to go about their lives.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the
| phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this
| regard, but it remains true that many people are in terms
| of knowledge and purchasing power completely at the whim
| of (in this case) Apple to go about their lives.
|
| I don't follow your chain of though here at all. It is a
| thing I use to get a job done... that's pretty much the
| definition of what a tool is.
| Shared404 wrote:
| I agree with most of what you say, but this:
|
| > And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the
| phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this
| regard
|
| Is just plainly inaccurate. The phone has nowhere _near_
| supplanted the desktop in multiple scenarios. Office work
| and programming [0] both come to mind.
|
| [0] And this was the specific use-case brought up by the
| parent. Pretty obvious a phone is not a competitor for
| that.
| mhh__ wrote:
| My point was that the phone has supplanted the computer
| as the sole device for many people i.e. people of my
| generation will often ask for an app rather than a
| website
| digidob wrote:
| To add to your point, an app is typically preferred for
| it's performance compared to a website in a browser. As
| is developing on hardware with known quirks and structure
| vs vague hardware. I don't understand the defense that
| developing on FOSS within unknown walls is somehow
| acceptable.
| Shared404 wrote:
| That is a fair point. I just found it important to point
| out that for many use-cases, including most of the ones
| in this discussion, phones are a complete nonstarter.
|
| I do apologize for how aggressively I came across as
| well, that was uncalled for.
| mhh__ wrote:
| > I do apologize for how aggressively I came across as
| well, that was uncalled for.
|
| No problem https://xkcd.com/386/ - you know the drill!
| bubblethink wrote:
| Wait till you get to wifi, power management, suspend resume,
| etc. The fact that linux (I know this post is about OpenBSD)
| boots on some random piece of hardware is commendable, but not
| that surprising in 2021.
| unglaublich wrote:
| This achievement, solely made possible by the OpenBSD team,
| does not contradict that statement about Apple, in any way.
| dwaite wrote:
| Also somewhat made possible by other teams as well as by
| Apple who added a mechanism to let alternative operating
| systems boot.
| asveikau wrote:
| To be fair that wasn't the only type of knee jerk negative
| reaction here on this topic. IIRC there was another, more
| Apple-fan style commentary of "a free OS will never run on this
| bespoke Apple product, and shouldn't".
|
| I for one am glad people are making progress.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| Like djrogers, I can't honestly say that I've seen a comment
| like that. I recall ones more like "I'm not interested in
| running another OS on my Mac" and "if you wanted to run
| Linux, why would you buy a Mac," but those really aren't the
| same sentiment.
| asveikau wrote:
| Maybe you are more accurately describing it. Some of them
| also say that free OSs are often behind on Mac hardware
| anyway, even on Intel. But the implication that I read into
| it is there's little reason to do it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| No big mystery here, people who buy Macs, prefer MacOS
| and don't see why you'd bother with Desktop Linux in
| general.
|
| I'm personally interested in Linux on the Mac as a
| curiosity and as an alternative in case Apple ever screws
| up MacOS so much I feel desktop Linux is the least bad
| alternative.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think M1 is a perfect example of why one might want to
| consider Apple's hardware and software in isolation,
| rather than a single integrated piece. There isn't
| currently another ARM laptop with the same performance
| characteristics.
|
| There have been other times when I thought apple hardware
| was more interesting than macOS. I don't think macOS is
| bad per se. There are times when I find it pleasant and
| times when I would greatly prefer something else. The
| attitude we're describing -- _why use Linux when there is
| macOS??_ -- strikes me as a little odd, because there is
| a built in hostility and assumption that everyone shares
| the Mac fan 's opinions and preferences, universally and
| in all circumstances.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I get it. It's a matter of perspective.
|
| As a Linux/ OpenBSD user, Mac hardware is suddenly a bit
| more appealing.
|
| As a Mac user, the reverse it not true. OpenBSD or Linux
| are no more appealing than it was before the switch.
|
| As for the rest of your post, I feel like the
| conversation is moving here under me. Use whatever OS you
| want. I don't see a ton of Mac people on here
| discouraging or disparaging any of this. I do see a a
| fair number of posts like the top one. "Running an
| alternative OS natively on a Mac doesn't seem very
| appealing to me." Which I don't see as the same as what
| you are suggesting.
| asveikau wrote:
| This is a solid reply, thanks.
|
| I like those middle 2 lines; for a user of a free OS, Mac
| hardware is interesting, but the reverse is not true.
|
| And sure, "use whatever OS you want" is kind of my point
| too. I _have_ seen the Mac community at large seeming to
| not have that live and let live attitude. Not anyone on
| this thread, but I think it is a thing that happens.
| comex wrote:
| A comment like that is now the top comment in the thread :)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26210875
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > IIRC there was another, more Apple-fan style commentary of
| "a free OS will never run on this bespoke Apple product, and
| shouldn't".
|
| I'm the person to whom you are responding. I'm very
| interested in the M1 and never saw such a post. I've
| literally never heard anyone express this view about a Mac.
| djrogers wrote:
| I've read just about every M1 story and thread on HN since
| launch, and one of us is apparently mis-reading some posts
| here. I have never seen anything that I could remotely
| interpret as matching that sentiment.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I didn't see it on the M1 threads but there have been some
| bizarrely "Corporations are not only people, but my
| friend"-ish arguments about "sideloading" (i.e. running
| software on a device you paid for!) on Apple products in
| general.
|
| In short, "But think of my Grandma" as opposed to think of
| the children.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Can no one even be bothered to debate the point?
| paulmd wrote:
| you're misrepresenting the point, the point people make
| is that apple curating apps on the app store is a good
| thing for user privacy and minimizing spyware, and that
| allowing sideloading or third-party app stores would
| immediately negate that as some of the biggest, most
| intrusive, and most socially-inescapeable apps (like
| facebook) would immediately demand they be sideloaded in
| order to escape the apple rules on permissions/user
| surveillance/etc.
|
| nobody thinks apple is doing it because they're their
| friend. And they know apple is making money off it. Some
| people prefer having apps with limited, audited
| permissions over a more wild-west approach where you
| could install anything and apps could demand anything or
| prevent you from using the app.
|
| (and if you don't that's fine, Android exists and no
| apple users mind that. Market choices are good, stop
| trying to shut down Apple's ability to provide a
| different experience.)
|
| if you really really want to sideload an app on an apple
| phone, pay the $50 a year for a developer account and you
| can compile and sideload whatever you want. Same for xbox
| btw, you can run any UWP app on an Xbox if you have a
| developer account.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'm sure microsoft would've made the same argument in
| their anti-trust case - you're free to "sideload" any
| browser you want, or just buy a mac.
|
| Most apple users have almost zero-information in an
| economic sense. Market choices are being made when
| consumers are being segmented into very rigid, hard to
| leave, cultures like Apple and Google - on top of that
| Apple and partly google own much of the stores, they do
| all the marketing, and can wield considerable basically
| unchecked power over their users.
|
| And also, your mum isn't going to be using third party
| app stores, that whole part of the argument is quite
| vacuous and is effectively a logical basis for Apple to
| have complete oversight of everything on the app. And if
| she did want to play fortnite, Apple obviously aren't
| doing this for the goodness of their customers because
| they only pulled the plug when fortnite did the payments
| itself - that's just rentseeking.
| mjg59 wrote:
| At the point the hardware shipped, it was impossible to boot
| non-Apple operating systems on M1 systems. Post-release updates
| added this, but Apple had not publicly committed to doing so
| before that.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Apple committed to this during WWDC, when they mentioned that
| they would have an option to dial the boot security back.
| mjg59 wrote:
| WWDC included discussion of "Reduced security" mode, which
| allows downgrading to old signed versions of MacOS, but I
| don't remember any disclosure of plans to permit arbitrary
| operating systems at that point - do you have a pointer?
|
| Edit: The transcript at
| https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10686/
| discusses reduced security, but doesn't say anything about
| booting arbitrary code.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You found the right talk, but it's actually only waved at
| and not explicitly discussed so it's not in the
| transcript. At about 19 minutes the engineer mentions
| that a csrutil will be able to do more things and on the
| slide disabling secure boot is one of them. (This
| actually got moved into bputil, but the intent was there
| at least.)
| mjg59 wrote:
| That indicates that csrutil would be able to do
| /something/ with secure boot policy, but I really don't
| interpret that as a commitment to being able to boot
| arbitrary operating systems - if we were still unable to
| do so today, I don't think you'd be able to put up a
| strong argument that Apple had broken a commitment.
| saagarjha wrote:
| The only thing I can plausibly interpret that as is
| "we'll let you turn off secure boot" (I mean, what else
| can you do?). I agree that Apple never committed to
| anything beyond that (and I am pleasantly surprised as to
| how much effort and documentation went into what they
| have currently given) but I think it is a reasonable
| interpretation from the slides that getting some sort of
| OS loaded that isn't Apple's is something they had
| advertised.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand what Apple contributed here. It's not
| supported, helped, or encouraged by Apple. And Apple does not
| document their H/W in ways that allow reuse. Hence these are
| all reverse engineering projects.
|
| Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious
| advantages, things just work, etc.
|
| Personally I happen to not like it, but it's a choice folks
| have to make by themselves.
|
| I buy my H/W from vendors that actually support running Linux
| (in my case) like Dell, Lenovo, and others.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| They explicitly built a mechanism for loading alternate OS's.
| I'm not going to sing Apple's praises over that or anything,
| but it means that Macs are still an order of magnitude less
| locked down than, say, an iPhone. You have the ability to do
| whatever you want with a Mac... provided you figure out how.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Infinitely, really, since on iOS it's zero and on macOS it
| is nonzero ;) Of course, on macOS it's still not a lot, but
| you can see why everyone is excited about what Apple is
| offering right now.
| zepto wrote:
| > Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious
| advantages, things just work, etc.
|
| This is just false.
|
| iOS _is_ a walled garden. The Mac is not by anyone's
| definition.
| fsflover wrote:
| Mac _is_ a walled garden. What if I want to convert my OS
| to a VM and /or run it on a different hardware? AFAIK it's
| prohibited by the license.
| zepto wrote:
| That is nobody's definition of a walled garden.
|
| You can run whatever you like on Mac Hardware.
|
| You can run whatever software you like on Mac OS.
|
| Installing MacOS on computers you haven't licensed it for
| is just that.
|
| It's not free software. It is commercial software.
|
| You are conflating the concept of commercial software
| with the concept of a walled garden.
| fsflover wrote:
| > You are conflating the concept of commercial software
| with the concept of a walled garden.
|
| Commercial software is the software for which developers
| get money. It can include free software, too. It has
| nothing to do with the license or the topic we are
| discussing. _You_ are conflating the concepts here.
|
| Walled garden in general is a convenient system, from
| which a user can hardly escape when the users wants to.
| This is exactly what Mac license does. Wikipedia has Mac
| OS as an example of a walled garden. I did not make it up
| myself.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walled_garden_
| (te...
| zepto wrote:
| That seems to be just false.
|
| The Wikipedia article does mention Mac OS, _but does not,
| anywhere, use it as an example of a walled garden._
|
| Here is the definition from the page you link:
|
| "A closed platform, walled garden, or closed
| ecosystem[1][2] is a software system wherein the carrier
| or service provider has control over applications,
| content, and media, and restricts convenient access to
| non-approved applicants or content. This is in contrast
| to an open platform, wherein consumers generally have
| unrestricted access to applications and content."
|
| This definition is simply not true of Mac OS.
| fsflover wrote:
| Did you even read the article I linked? I quote for you:
|
| _A 2008 Harvard Business School working paper, entitled
| "Opening Platforms: How, When and Why?", differentiated a
| platform's openness/closedness by four aspects and gave
| example platforms.
|
| Platform provider (hardware/operating system (OS)
| bundle), Mac OS: closed
|
| Platform sponsor (design & intellectual property (IP)
| rights owner), Mac OS: closed_
|
| Tl;dr:
|
| It's not a walled garden _in all aspects_ , but it
| definitely restricts users in a significant way,
| depending on your use case.
| zepto wrote:
| I did read it. What you are quoting has _nothing to do
| with the definition of a walled garden on that page._
|
| Notably for some reason you chose not to include the part
| where they also say about Mac OS:
|
| Demand-side use (end-user): open
|
| Supply-side user (application developer): open
|
| It is not a walled garden in _any_ way that they define a
| walled garden.
|
| Here is the definition from the page you link: "A closed
| platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a
| software system wherein the carrier or service provider
| has control over applications, content, and media, and
| restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or
| content. This is in contrast to an open platform, wherein
| consumers generally have unrestricted access to
| applications and content."
|
| It doesn't apply to Mac OS.
|
| Restricting installation of the operating system itself
| on other hardware just isn't part of the definition.
|
| No matter how much you selectively copy and paste from a
| Wikipedia page, it will not say what you claim it is
| saying.
|
| Trying to say _any_ restriction of use means a walled
| garden is akin to saying _any software that isn't
| completely free is a walled garden._
|
| That just isn't what the term means.
| fsflover wrote:
| By the definition you quoted, Mac OS is also _not_ an
| open platform. This is exactly what I am saying: in some
| aspects, it 's a walled garden. Depending on your use
| case, it may be essential.
| unilynx wrote:
| By that definition, the OEM versions of Windows would be
| walled gardens too.
| fsflover wrote:
| In principle, yes. But at least you _can_ switch to a
| differently licensed version of the OS if this is your
| concern.
| zepto wrote:
| Sure but the OEM version of Windows _is not_ a walled
| garden.
|
| You are just trying to make a definition of walled garden
| that isn't what people generally mean so you can include
| MacOS within it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > The Mac is not by anyone's definition.
|
| Seems to me like a whole lot of arguments about Apple
| involve changing accepted definitions of things or using
| different standards for Apple versus others.
|
| Apple does enough things wrong and I'm perfectly willing to
| accept those things and understand when people are
| frustrated by those things. No need to invent whole new
| things or shift definitions just so you can complain about
| them.
| zepto wrote:
| > No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions
| just so you can complain about them.
|
| Since I agree with you, I assume this is aimed at the
| comment I'm responding to it, and those like it, rather
| than me.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Not you. Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor
| some Apple-haters have. Seems like sometimes people are
| willing to go through great contortions to figure out how
| whatever Apple did is wrong.
|
| Totally understand why people might prefer Linux/
| Windows/ Amiga/ whatever. People should just enjoy what
| they want.
| zepto wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26212454
| webmobdev wrote:
| > Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some
| Apple-haters have.
|
| It goes both ways. I'd add that atleast the "Apple-
| haters" have more of a standing in defending open
| computing standards and demanding Apple be open too.
| zepto wrote:
| Dishonest redefinition doesn't create standing.
|
| Also - why does hating Apple give anyone any right to
| demand anything from them?
|
| Why not demand more from people who are actually working
| on Open computing?
| saagarjha wrote:
| It is in some aspects, so I am not surprised that there are
| people willing to claim that the walls are too high for
| them. Personally, they could be a bit lower but I can still
| see over them I'm not up in arms quite yet.
| zepto wrote:
| Configuration defaults do not a walled garden make.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem.
|
| iOS is a walled garden. (as are it's cousins for Apple TV, &
| HomePod.
|
| MacOS is not.
|
| If MacOS was a walled garden, I wouldn't be able to do my job
| with it.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > iOS is a walled garden ... MacOS is not.
|
| Technically, that is true. But it is getting there. Apple
| makes more money, and importantly recurring revenue, from
| its services now than selling its hardware. The move to ARM
| processors is one of their strategic moves to further
| "close" their desktop platforms too. The only reason they
| don't do it outright right now is because they know people
| like you and me will immediately abandon the platform if we
| are stuck with only macOS and can only install everything
| from the App store. But we would be fools to ignore that
| the noose is tightening and, with M1 you are now stuck with
| macOS (unlike the older macs). The next iterations will
| close it down further ...
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, Apple fans seem to be forgetting that the ones in
| power at Apple are business people, who care as much
| about customers as any other company. And being business
| people they don't have sympathy for developers either and
| in fact would rather see their power reduced. In their
| best scenario, all developers become low-wage employees
| but without the benefit of employees. A bit like Uber
| drivers.
| mrweasel wrote:
| What would Apple even have to lose by proving the
| specification and documentation needed to boot alternative
| operating systems? People would still need to by the hardware
| from Apple and the number of people who even consider this
| option is so small that the PR it would bring easily
| outweight any potential cost. How many bought the Intel Macs
| initially because: If it doesn't workout, I just install
| Windows.
|
| Linux users would buy M1, with the intention of running
| Linux, and if it doesn't work, they can still run macOS.
|
| I don't see the risk to Apple, if they at least provided
| documentation for the M1.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _What would Apple even have to lose by proving the
| specification and documentation needed to boot alternative
| operating systems?_
|
| They already describe how to do so, and the specification
| to merely boot is trivial anyway. Linux, OpenBSD (as in
| TFA), and others have booted already.
|
| It's the details of the GPU and other such stuff that needs
| drivers (touchpad, etc) that are missing. And those are
| rarely well documented on the Intel side, by AMD and NVIDIA
| either, anyway.
| BillinghamJ wrote:
| I guess we could fairly call it a undocumented or obscure
| garden? But there's no real designed wall there.
|
| Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us
| out either. Agree it would be nice for them to help out a
| little, but it's really not the same thing.
| p_l wrote:
| IIRC, it turned out that ability to run non Apple OSes
| depends on one person who implemented it and is responsible
| for it. It wasn't part of any road map for M1
| saagarjha wrote:
| There's certainly more than one person involved.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not
| helping us out either.
|
| It's the same thing. (And the only reason they aren't _yet_
| outright preventing it is because it would be bad PR -
| nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone
| or iPad. But it will happen.)
| coldtea wrote:
| > _nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the
| iPhone or iPad_
|
| You'd be surprised.
|
| (Also, this exactly has been the proposition and allure
| of the Chromebooks - a computer that you can just wipe
| and restart again and it's like a phone or tablet device,
| and your data are synced in the cloud).
| messe wrote:
| Fantastic. OpenBSD on an M1 Mac Mini would be a great home
| server.
|
| As for desktop, I love cwm on my thinkpads, but macbook touchpads
| have won me over. That said, if arcan gets to a usable state on
| OpenBSD, I wouldn't mind sinking a few weekends (and/or crates of
| beer) into helping with improving touchpad/gesture support. X11
| is just too daunting to have me bothered.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| I don't mean to be dismissive, but isn't almost anything a
| decent home server nowadays? As long as your'e OK with the
| performance, size, cost, storage, there are just myriad options
| available. Just about any PC or mac would do. Finally, we all
| have our own preferences, but I'm not sure why one would really
| want to use OpenBSD for a home server. There's less driver
| support or application support than just about any other
| choice. It sounds like an ideal choice if you like to spend
| countless hours fiddling with things.
|
| I'm really curious what you see to like in this setup.
| tiew9Vii wrote:
| The M1 mini would be a great home server in its form-factor
| (small size), power usage and performance. As the current
| mini is pretty much an empty shell, the minis' size should
| get smaller in the next generations. Intel nucs are popular
| for these reasons, but it seems the M1 will give better
| performance/power/size.
|
| I've used Linux for the past 20 years. I recently tried
| OpenBSD because I never used a BSD, so I thought I wanted to
| have a look and had a pet project building a home router. My
| experience of OpenBSD as a headless server is it's been an
| absolute joy to use. Simple, well structured and strong
| consistency with config and where files are placed, great man
| pages etc. From no experience at all with OpenBSD I had a
| fully functioning router with PF, multiple vlans, cross vlan
| firewall roules, mdns repeating etc etc within a few hours.
| Regarding fiddling with things, for a headless server, it's
| been the easiest server I've set up to date.
|
| The only negative experience I've had is when not shut down
| properly I've had a few issues starting it. I think I could
| solve that if I wanted to. Using it as a router I can set up
| a read-only filesystem etc. The other drawback is it's not
| Linux and I use Docker daily for development so would need to
| do what Docker on OSX does and run Docker in a Linux vm.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| CPU performance is a funny argument for a router as the
| hardware reqs on a home router are already so low. My
| current router is gigabit, has best in class WiFi, is
| smaller than a mac mini and is fanless.
|
| I got to say though: PF, multiple vlans, cross vlan
| firewall roules, mdns repeating do not sound like something
| a home user should be setting up. The only reason one would
| play with these things in a home environment is because
| they want to. Which is fine... but makes it a toy/pet
| project and not something to recommend to others. My home
| router is Ubiquiti and it "just works" zero fiddling
| required. I'm not sure why one would want anything more
| complex for a home environment.
|
| I guess we all have different preferences where we like to
| spend our time. I fiddled with things for decades, now I
| only want to fiddle for something really worth it.
| tiew9Vii wrote:
| Yeah for a router you wouldn't use the M1, it has one
| Ethernet port and overkill. I use one of the Pc Engines
| APU2 board's.
|
| The reference to the router was in regards I used OpenBSD
| and found OpenBSD a great server OS.
|
| I have multiple vlan's as have a guest wifi for visitors,
| all iot devices like tv, soundbars on a private vlan with
| restricted network access, dns ad blocking, dns over tls,
| wireguard for remote access etc. I use ubiquiti access
| points/switches but run my own router for learning
| purposes plus the flexibility. To be honest, since I've
| set it up I haven't done any fiddling, it's been rock
| solid. I've had more issues doing updates on the ubiquiti
| devices dropping the wireless uplink I have then having
| to power cycle them to come back up.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| Again, nothing wrong with it, but your home network is
| far more complex than most small (10-20 person) offices
| I've ever seen. It's the kind of thing you do because
| you're interested, not because of a practical reason. I
| guess you mentioned it was for learning purposes which is
| a good reason.
| aborsy wrote:
| Security.
|
| EdgeOS is proprietary and closed source, and not updated
| as frequently as OpenBSD.
| ac29 wrote:
| EdgeOS is mostly just vanilla debian with some
| proprietary configuration tools on top.
| cat199 wrote:
| Have you actually used OpenBSD?
|
| Agree _available_ drivers /applications might be less than a
| mainstream linux, but for what is there, things work
| completely solidly and require basically negative fiddling
| dannyw wrote:
| If you have a mainstream motherboard, you'll likely have
| Realtek Ethernet drivers.
|
| These do not reliably work in OpenBSD and will hang if you
| try to use it as a NAS.
| hedora wrote:
| I've found when shopping for a motherboard, it's usually
| $10-20 more for intel ethernet, which is a much better
| experience under Linux and *BSD
| dannyw wrote:
| Unless you want to build on the Ryzen platform for ECC
| support on the consumer series.
| anthk wrote:
| -Current works fine.
| spijdar wrote:
| I love BSDs and try to use them personally because I like
| the experience, but as far as _drivers_ go, I feel like
| Linux is generally on par with the BSDs. It 's the userland
| which can be a PITA.
|
| Basically, I'm not sure there's enough of a difference to
| warrant someone who can already do linux to use openbsd.
| Diminishing returns if you're interested in hosting a media
| server or NAS or whatever people wanna do with home
| servers.
|
| That said, I highly recommend running either Open or NetBSD
| for a while just to get the experience. For me, running
| NetBSD as my only OS on my laptop through my late teens
| gave me a great foundation for my professional life up till
| now in my mid twenties. Really pleasant and simple OSes,
| great for learning OS problem solving too.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > OpenBSD on an M1 Mac Mini would be a great home server.
|
| That does sound really nice. Once the price on SSDs comes down
| a bit I'd love to replace my Dell PowerEdge T20 Plex/Time
| Machine box with a Mac mini with stackable TB4 enclosure
| containing a few M.2 SSDs. It'd take a fraction of the space
| and power while being much more responsive.
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